


Dear Karl (version a)

by Maels (queen_ypolita)



Series: Dear Karl [1]
Category: Coronation Street
Genre: 100-1000 Words, M/M, Post-Canon, letter format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-12
Updated: 2005-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/pseuds/Maels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the anniversary of their first kiss, Todd is writing a letter to Karl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Karl (version a)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the anniversary of the Canal Street kiss (April 2005). There are two versions of this fic, this is version a.

London, 12 April

 

~~Karl, ~~~~Dear Karl, ~~Karl,

you must be surprised to get a letter from me, I know. We haven't really been in touch… we promised we would but… ~~we always knew we wouldn't.~~ Anyway. And I feel really stupid, writing this letter when I could pick up the phone and give you a ring, or send you a text. It's just… I tried that and I couldn't. Which is why I'm writing to you now.

To start from the beginning - why I'm writing to you. Well, today I happened to look at the calendar we have on the wall in the staff room and something about the date rang a bell. I tried to figure out what it was; it was definitely familiar but I just couldn't remember what it could be. So I put it out of my mind and went about doing what I had been meaning to do, made coffee for myself and went to sit outside to have a few minutes on my own. And then I remembered - your birthday, the 12th of April. A year since I first kissed you. And it brought back all the memories I had conveniently forgotten I still had. And the memories were very real - I can't explain it properly, suddenly it was almost as if I could smell your aftershave, feel the cotton of your shirt at my fingertips, almost taste your taste in my mouth. Those memories were real enough for me ~~to feel suddenly sick~~ to be glad I was alone, I didn't want anyone to see me like that.

It was a shock to remember everything so powerfully, in such detail.

You see, I had almost ~~forgotten~~ stopped thinking about you. Stopped thinking about everything that happened to me last year 'cos it was too painful. It's crazy, a year is such a short time and yet it seems so long ago, as if it happened to me in a different life, as if it didn't happen to me but to someone else. Maybe it's because I tried so hard to put it all behind me when I found myself in London - it hurt so badly, I had to find a place to stay, a new job, a new college, to think about unis and filling in the forms - I simply didn't have the time or the energy to wallow on the past. I don't mean to say that what we had was painful, it just got so entangled with everything else that if I wanted to forget Sarah and Billy and all that pain, I had to stop thinking about you too. ~~It was never you I wanted to forget.~~

Anyway… when I was trying to pull myself together, for the first time in months I started wondering what it would have been like if I had given us a chance in August. It took a while for it to sink in, but that was why you came to see me for, wasn't it? I can't say I've never regretted my decision then. I wanted it so much but I was scared. That's always been my problem, hasn't it? Being too scared I mean. Not just with you… even before I met you. Sometimes I wished I had met you sooner, that it would have been easier that way. But I don't know… and I can't change it any more, and I don't really want that either. It had to happen the way it did. And the life's too short for making fancy plans how you would do everything differently if you could. It's too late for it now… for us I mean. But I'm glad we had what we did. ~~Maybe one day… who knows about these things.~~

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Hope you're out enjoying yourself… but you haven't completely forgotten the lad who kissed you out of the blue on your 23rd. And don't worry, at 24 thirty is still a long way off.

~~Love,~~ Love, Todd


End file.
